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I want to address a specific change in the definition and experience of pain since I started to practice BJJ. It is likely that if you’ve read one of my previous posts you know already that BJJ is the thing I love most. In order to practice BJJ, I need my body to be (more or less) in its optimal physical state. Training is never completely safe, and injuries are one of the most frequent and inevitable threats to my body’s physical ability. Before I started to train, I experienced pain mainly as a function of subjective feeling. Now I experience pain as a function of its association with potential injury and the degree of that injury.

The most important thing for me about pain is its implication to my future training. Pain that is not associated with any injury is now experienced as neutral, or even as pleasant if it means that I succeeded in performing a specific technique. Pain that is associated with potential injury that is very mild and that from my past experience will not interfere with my training routine (for example, poorly executed arm bar) is more unpleasant, but it soon dissipates from my consciousness altogether. When it comes to intense pain, its experience depends very much on my ability to train “around” the injury. If I can train “around” it, the pain loses its intensity and effect on my mood. If I suspect that the pain will damage my training routine, it effects me so much that I get depressed.

P.S. Since I started practicing martial arts, I developed some connections with others who have walked the path before me, and their emotional and practical support is especially valuable to me in coping with injuries. I wish to thank them for their support.

In August I wrote about my experiences of gender and embodiment in the martial arts, specifically in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ). A lot has changed. So this post is a kind of update post. From the beginning , the most important thing practicing BJJ gave me was the ability to unite my body and mind, an ability for which I found no other outlet, before or since. As a woman whose experiences with her body were objectification or alienation, practicing BJJ was a precious gift – the experience of a unity with my body (generally, I feel far more one with my mind, then with my body).

I was physically active before I started practicing BJJ but what characterized my physical activity was that it was monotonous and solitary. At the gym where I used to work out, there was anti-bacterial spray you could use to clean up the machines before you use them. I think this spray is a good metaphor to the kind of human relationships that often develop at the gym.

When I started practicing BJJ I had to become one with my body for three main reasons:

For the first time in my life I found an outlet to express and develop intelligence and creativity through my body.

I had to engage in intensive embodied learning that made me concentrate 100% on my body (unlike the simple monotonous movements at the gym).

I had to be 100%in the here and now to avoid pain and feelings of helplessness that sometimes occur in sparring and drills.

However, recently, I have begun to experience unity with my body in a completely different way.

I used to be very competitive. I had to temporarily let go of that competitiveness and toughness, when I gradually returned to practice after the most serious injury I suffered. But this was only a forced concession. Because my body prevented me from doing what I love the most for nearly two months, I lost my trust in him (Hebrew is a gendered language and I think of my body in the usual masculine grammatical way in Hebrew).I was afraid of rousing my body’s fury again. As I slowly regained confidence in my body’s ability to endure the pressure, I returned to my old (relative) toughness. I measured the quality of my sparring rolls by the number of submissions, of me or of my sparring partners.

For a while, I had felt that I was improving my technique. But lately I’ve been feeling stuck, that my technique was even deteriorating. The number of submissions I succeeded in pulling dramatically decreased, and there were entire sparring rolls in which I couldn’t even reach a dominant position once.

These experiences (among others) drew me closer to the inevitable conclusion that I am simply not gifted in BJJ, and that I probably need to work twice as hard as the average male to reach his level. Surprisingly, this conclusion did not change the intensity of passion I have for BJJ. It made me realize that what is more interesting to me than winning or losing, or mastering a technique, is the primordial and primitive physical encounter of the struggle.

I noticed that I started to roll with much less physical force. I get less tired. What is most important for me in the sparring roll is making this connection, bodily communication, with another embodied human being. To get some sort of message through, with my body, and to receive the message (or messages) of my rolling partners

I feel calmer, more relaxed and more focused when I spar. I want to listen and embrace what that other person has to tell (me). His or her achievement (in submitting me, for instance) may be interesting , or it may not, but it does not automatically decrease my presence. I feel almost as though I meditate during sparring . I feel that the alertness of pain is not the primary reason I am one with my body during sparring anymore. I am one with my body because I have to focus, I have to be 100% in the here and now (being 100% in the here and now has always something to do with being one with the body, although not always in positive ways), in order to receive the message the other person sends me through his or her body and movements. I need to be precise to get my own message through.

I want to get better. I want to master additional techniques. But I know that even if I don’t, or even if it will be painfully slow, what interests me in BJJ has nothing to do with winning or losing.

An update: the fact that I love BJJ most, but I know that I’m not a talented practitioner, makes me understand this line by Nirvana: I’m worse at what I do best, and for this gift I feel blessed.